Franchise Facts

The Cardinals were founded in 1882 as an American Association Team called the St. Louis Brown Stockings.

In 1892, the team moved to the National League and changed the team name to the St. Louis Browns. In 1899, the name was changed to the Perfectos, and in 1900, the name was changed to the St. Louis Cardinals.

From 1902-1954, an American League Team called the St. Louis Browns also played in St. Louis. In 1954, they moved to Baltimore and became the Baltimore Orioles.

The Cardinals have won more than 9,300 games, 11 World Series Championships, 18 National League Pennants, 3 National League Eastern Division Titles, and 8 National League Central Division Titles.

There are more than 40 former Cardinal players and managers enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

In March of 1996 a group of investors led by Bill DeWitt Jr. purchased the Cardinals from Anheuser Busch.

Over the last 16 seasons, the team has finished in first place eight times, won three NL pennants and two World Series while drawing over 50 million fans.

Baseball America named the Cardinals the 2011 Baseball Organization of the Year for the first time, recognizing that the team's big league success was built upon a strong foundation of a restructured organization that claimed two minor league titles in 2011 and that since 2005 has among the most team-drafted players debut in the majors.

The Cardinals bring more than 3 million fans downtown each year, with more than a million coming from outside of the state of Missouri. 90% of fans come from outside the City of St. Louis.

In 2006 the Cardinals moved into the new $411 million Busch Stadium in downtown St. Louis on April 10, 2006 (beating the Brewers 6-4). The team covered nearly 90 percent of the cost of the project, including infrastructure.

Nearly 21 Million fans have attended Cardinals games in the new Busch Stadium since it opened on April 10, 2006 (20,130,635 regular season attendance; 839,583 post season attendance).

There are approximately 3,000 day-of-game employees at Busch Stadium.

The St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association (RCGA) estimates that the economic impact of the 2012 Cardinals' season on the St. Louis region will be approximately $322 million, with an estimated $160 million this year in direct impact and $162 million in in-direct regional economic activity.

In 2011, the Cardinals drew 3.093 million fans, with 27 sellout games - ranking 7th in MLB in attendance.

In 2011, the Cardinals had 36 Promotional Giveaways, ranging from magnet schedules and wall calendars to bats, hats, pennants and bobbleheads.

In 2011, the Cardinals implemented a new value-based ticket pricing system called Dynamic Pricing that allows the team to more accurately price single-game tickets on a day-to-day basis. The dynamic system was a success in helping achieve the goals of broadening the ticket-buying fan base, rewarding fans for buying earlier in the season, and protecting season ticket holder value. 80% of the games in 2011 were priced lower than in 2010. 65% of the games had tickets available for $10 or less. 35% of the games had tickets available for only $5.

Over the last 16 seasons, the Cardinals have donated nearly 4 million tickets to children and charities.

Cardinals Care has distributed more than $18 million to area organizations and built 19 Youth Baseball Fields since it was founded in 1997.

Redbird Rookies now has 20 leagues, serving more than 4,500 kids in the St. Louis metropolitan area, as well as parts of rural Missouri and Illinois. In addition to organizing leagues for kids, Redbird Rookies provides services to kids such as youth mentoring programs, health screenings, and scholarship opportunities.

In 2011, Cardinals telecasts on FOX Sports Midwest generated the 2nd highest local market television ratings in Major League Baseball, the 12th straight year in which the Cardinals ranked among the top three teams. FOX Sports Midwest-produced Cardinals telecasts are shown in nine states and available in millions of homes.

The Cardinals radio network is the second largest in baseball with 117 stations in nine states (Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Tennessee) with the potential to reach over 21 million listeners.

In one year, the Stadium sells:

540,000 hot dogs;

181,000 pounds of nacho chips; and

32,000 gallons of nacho cheese.

During a typical season the Cardinals go through:

7,315,200 ft of paper towels

15,373,800 ft of toilet paper

The Cardinals' "4 A Greener Game Program" launched in 2008 is credited with recycling more than 1836 tons of solid waste, more than 575 tons of yard waste and more than 110 tons of composted organic material.

The Cardinals have reduced their energy use by 20% and water use by 10% since the stadium opened in 2006.

The team's concessionaire Delaware North Sportservice has donated more than $159,000 worth of food to Operation Food Search, with a waste diversion rate of 29%.

The Cardinals Web site (cardinals.com) is very popular with fans, drawing over 32.7 million visitors in season and over 13 million unique visitors a month.

The Cardinals have also been active in social media. The team has more than 1.2 million fans on Facebook (facebook/cardinals), and more than 120,000 followers on Twitter (@cardinals). In 2010, the Cardinals launched a social media based "Stand for Stan" campaign to celebrate Stan Musial that culminated in President Barack Obama awarding Stan Musial the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

In 1998, the Cardinals opened the $28 Million Roger Dean Stadium and Sports Complex in Jupiter, Florida. In 2002, the team purchased the Charlotte Rangers, renamed them the Palm Beach Cardinals and moved them to Jupiter.

Since 2005, the Cardinals have owned and operated the Class AA Texas League Springfield Cardinals franchise that plays at the new Hammons Field in Springfield, Missouri.

The St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum www.cardinals.com/museum) collection is the largest team-held collection in Major League Baseball and is second only to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in terms of size with over 16,000 memorabilia items and over 80,000 archival photographs.